I lost over 35 pounds with Weight Watchers. Now I learn to live like the skinny girl I have become.

Monday, June 4, 2007

monday, monday

It was a good weekend. I posted quickly on Saturday morning that it was a busy day and would only be getting busier. I was in the midst of making strawberry jam and preserves and a marmalade and freezing strawberries. I spent about 4 hours on Friday night "putting up" strawberries. Then I was at it again Saturday morning for another 4 hours or so. I finally processed the rest of my second batch of strawberry preserves (or as I like to call it "Heaven in a Jar"! lol) on Sunday morning. This is the first of many weekends that will be spent in the kitchen putting away fresh produce for winter.

Last summer we joined a CSA. It has been an amazing experience. We go to the farm once a week during the summer and help out in the barn getting things ready for the weekly distribution. Then we bring home a bushel or two (or often more) of whatever was harvested the day before. My kids had so much fun just running around outside. And D and I really enjoyed the hard work and learning about how organic family farming works.

We also were able to can and freeze a lot of things to put away for fall and winter. It was a lot of work. One weekend we froze about 50 ears of corn. That means we blanched them all (put them in boiling water for a minute or two, then put them in ice water), D cut all the corn off the cobs and I put it in Food Saver bags and vacu-sealed it. That was just one weekend of corn. We did that a few times throughout the summer. It seems I was always canning green beans, too. Then there was the zucchini. We got really creative in how we used it fresh, and then I just started shredding it and freezing it in 4 cup bags so I could make bread or zucchini pancakes all winter.

And don't get me started on how many pickles we did last summer!!!

The amazing thing? We ran out of corn in February. I have 4 quarts (2 meals' worth) of green beans still in my basement. We have just a few jars of pickles left. I have 2 loaves of zucchini bread in the freezer left from the last bag of zucchini that we froze. And our only jam left is peach that we made last September. We really used what we put away.

I'm wondering how WW will go for me this summer when I am so very busy in the kitchen for hours on end like that. Friday night I really just ate a piece of salmon that D grilled for me. I never even sat down, just picked at it on the platter while I was hulling strawberries. I probably ate more salmon than I intended to that way. But I never even sat down. Not a good thing, I know, and really not the norm for me. But the 3 oldest kids were on a sleepover so the 3 littles were eating hot dogs and berries for dinner at the picnic table. I do get a little (LITTLE?!) OCD while I am in the kitchen like that. I am just in my zone about getting stuff done and the next batch started.

So how will I do with staying with my plan for summer when I am snapping and canning green beans for an entire Saturday morning? Or making pickles for 3 days straight? I don't take/make the time to eat well while I am doing my kitchen stuff. Will I be able to make good (fast and easy) choices? Will I take the time to really track my daily points? Or will I just be winging some days? And will winging it work as a method to lose the last 13 pounds I want to lose?

I have thought about switching to CORE for the summer. That way I wouldn't have to worry about tracking points at all...other than a few weekly points here and there. On the ohter hand, could I give up my weekend bagels or daily lunch wraps? I don't know. I have a couple more weeks to figure things out. I know things really started getting crazy last year around the beginning of July with making pickles. Then again, we are going to pick more strawberries on Saturday morning, too. I have a few more jam recipes I want to try! LOL

9 comments:

My youngest daughter has really curly hair and my dad always told her it got that way from sprouting through her very hard head! It sounds like you are so busy, you will work off those last few pounds! I think I lost a couple just reading your post.

You sound like you can like crazy. I plan to do alot of it this year too. Previously and Ex and I Did some pickles and some pickled green beans This will be my first year doing Jams, etc. I did managed to freeze about 50lbs of strawberries last year though...in one day, haha.

The canning, freezing, preserving sounds like so much fun! It is a great way to enjoy fresh beggies and fruit all winter long...ANd you don't have to pay the ridiculous prices at the grocery store!The pic looks great...YOU look GREAT!!! Keep it up and can't wait to congradulate you on 30 lbs gone!

Can you email me the recipe that you use for the low-sugar strawberry preserves? All I can find is ones with a ton of sugar in them, which I don't mind making, but I would like to use the low-sugar ones.

I'm totally amazed by you! On top of being a mommy to six, you are busy with canning and preserving too! Wow - I hope that I can do as much as you one day.;-)

To answer your question, yes, I'm still nursing the baby...and am really curious as to whether that's why my weight won't budge. I have a bunch of weight to lose, though, so it's not as though my body can't afford to let SOME of it go, you know?:-) I'm really glad that you wrote about how it you lost some weight after you stopped nursing.